Mayhap

“Do you think it is real,” Chin asked.  

“I don’t think it is real.  Even the priest here said it wasn’t likely to be real.  Real ain’t the damn point,” the kid fired back.  Outside the truck the rain came down in sheets.  The trucks moved at a snail’s pace, bobbing up and down the old dirt and hunting trails that led through the wild lands and into the headcounter’s reservation.

“If the priests don’t think it was real, then what’s the damn point?”

The priests came to the Irishman a few days early.  Father Gerard was a Frenchman.  Father Marcelino was a Pilipino by blood, but an Oregonian by birth.  They came to the Irishman for the barb.

“It is a simple thing.  An iron barb set in glass.  The barb was taken in one of their raids.  It is said the barb came from the flail used to scourge the body of Jesus Christ.”

The Irishman asked the same thing Chin asked.

“Do you think it is real?”

Father Gerard smiled softly.  “Who can say but God?  Often controversy surrounds such relics.  How many grails have been presented over the years?  And yet...”

“And yet,” The Irishman finished, “it doesn’t necessarily matter that the relic is real or not real.  What matters is they took it, and that cannot be allowed.”

Father Gerard smiled softly but said nothing.

“Where is it?”

“There was a chapel built on the reservation, long before the administrators handed the land over as a gift.  We hear that many such captured artifacts are held there.”

“They display them like trophies,” Father Marcelino said.

“They are trophies,” The Irishman said.  “They are trophies of war.  That hook may not have ever torn the flesh of Jesus Christ, but the headcounters draw power from it all the same.  They drew power from the fact they took it, and they draw power from the fact that they get to keep it and nobody comes to take it back.  Symbolism counts for everything in this war.  To them the hook is symbolic of their own strength and the weakness of the west and all of Christendom.  It symbolizes that they were men enough to take it, and we don’t have enough self-respect to stand up for ourselves try and take it back.

“I expect you want us to reclaim this barb?”

Another soft smile, which was answer enough.

“Well, Fathers, it just so happens my boys and I still have unfinished business over there.  We’ll head that way and if we find your relic, or somebody else’s relic, or anything else the headcounters have they ain’t supposed to, we’ll take it back.

“But we’d like you to come with us.”

And so it went.  When the rain fell from the sky, the armed men went back into the land of the headcounters.  The kid and Chin road in the back of one of the new trucks with Father Marcelino.  Nash drove, Greywald sat shotgun and together they made up the point element in the attacking column.  Greywald would ride as a passenger from time to time, then jump out into the rain and walk, guiding the truck along, past the fallen trees and the washouts and the places where mud spilled onto the road.  The old fighter wore no coat to stave off the rain, only his gear, which was loaded with pouches full of loaded magazines for his rifle.

“He’s just spoiling for a fight,” Chin commented.  The priest made the sign of the cross.

“The rain’s made him ornery,” Angus said.  More trucks stretched behind them.  They only had their parking lights on, and those were hard to see the rain was so hard.  

“We’ll be lucky if we don’t lose the road to a mudslide or a washout.”

Father Marcelino made another sign.

“You think that’ll help,” Chin asked.

“If I didn’t, then I’m in the wrong field of work,” Marcelino answered.    

Greywald came back to the truck.  He flung open the passenger side door and torrents of water came in.  Everything inside was wet.  Even the air inside was wet.  

“How much further,” Nash asked.

“We hit the gravel road in another half mile, after a mile of that it is hardball to the old main side and the chapel.”  

From up the side of the vehicle came the Irishman.  The wind and the rain picked up, whipping and howling and heralding his approach.   Streams of water cascaded down his bald head.  He held his stick.  Greywald repeated his report.

“You check that against a map?”

“Don’t need no map.  I spent a lot of time out in this land, back before we gave it away.”

“We can’t appease our way out of this mess.” The Irishman said.  “Every concession we make is taken for weakness.”

“Folks say we can’t kill our way out of it neither.”

“We killed our way out of it plenty of times in the past.  Don’t see why it won’t work this time.”

“We just going to roll up on them,” Greywald asked.  Despite the rain he had his sleeves cuffed just below the elbow and his tattoo showed.  The Irishman pointed at the ink with the head of his cane.

“Took you six months to learn to do a raid properly.  We don’t have six month.   And I expect with the weather such as it is, we’ll catch them by surprise.”

“Good raidin’ weather,” Greywald said, looking up into the night sky and the endless torrents that fell from it.  “Perfect raiding weather.”  He grinned like some demonic thing the priests would rather not see.  

“Let’s get moving.”

The convoy got moving again.  Forty men.  Less than a dozen trucks.  They bounced and jostled.  The got moving only to come to a screeching halt again, jumbling upon each other in the mud and the rain and the misery.  Stretching open and closing again like an accordion.  If the weather was an annoyance the movement was unbearable.  

“Goddamn,” Chin said when they came to another halt, oblivious to the priest between him and the kid.  It took over and hour to make the next half mile, but when they got to the gravel track it was a blessing.  When they got to the paved road that ran through the reservation, it was like a miracle.

“We’ll be there in three minutes,” Greywald told the Irishman by means of a cell phone.

“Go,” The Irishman responded.  “Go.  Get there.  Get there.”

The engine revved angrily.  Nash flashed the headlights on.  Pale light, pale as death washed out against the downpour.  Beyond the immediate surroundings of the truck was only blackness containing shadows and forms.  The kid saw no humans, just  night and rain and a darkness that was apocalyptic.  He checked his watch.  It was 3am.  0300 to men like the tattooed Greywald.  He worked the action on his rifle.

“Up ahead,” Greywald called.  Out of the darkness loomed the chapel, white against the black, with a roof of red tile.  The cross long since cast down.

“Time to go to work,” Greywald shouted.  Nash slammed on the breaks.  The truck skidded to a stop.  A second truck behind them skidded too, brakes screaming.   Men shouted.

They went to work.

Been missing this one.  Thanks for the chapter!

Outstanding Sharkman.

Nice.

Blood bath is in the works

I am really enjoying this story. OP, your writing style and prose reminds me of John Steinbeck. Very raw and thoughtful.

OST



You're a dick for giving us a cliffhanger like that!
Keep up the good work!

Excellent so far, I am liking where this is going........

Christmas is coming.  Maybe Santa will bring you all some bloodshed.  I'll have to bring him up on the net and see if you've been naughty or nce.

Hell I can answer that on my own.

It's always good to see another of your stories post Ed Sharkman. Have a Merry Christmas.

I used to be a regular visitor here, when Swindle and Halfast were contributing. Haven't even peeked in here for a few years. I think I have found a new reason to start checking this forum more often.

Great story man!

Thanks!

If you like this one check out The Spartans Last March.  Similar writing style.  A bit more violent though.

lol.

And damn good!

I'll take a look.
Do you have any kindle books?

Search J. G. Elliot

A couple:   The Spartans Last March.    Overt Actions.  Flip of The Coin is here on page 4 or 5.
I also have on Kindle two short stories; Operation Swarm and Fourth Order Effects.

Thanks for the plug!

I've read everyone and enjoyed them more than i am able to articulate.

I highly recommend any and all J.G. Elliot books.

powerful stuff...

my inner voice would be screaming "ambush" knowing the politics of the catholic church...

a couple of gunships would wreak havoc on this raid... ETA - the rain helps...

When is the next chapter going to get posted sharkman6?

Greywald was the first out of the truck.  He moved in a flash, and before anyone else could get out he was through the rain and at the chapel.  After two kicks to its locked front doors, the chapel relented and let him in.

“Stay here with me,” Nash ordered Father Marcelino.  Another truck skidded to a stop as Chin and the kid followed Greywald into the chapel.  The white light of the older warrior’s weapon-light played through the interior’s darkness.  Thunder boomed.  Men shouted.  

The kid entered and was stopped in his tracks by an obstacle of stench.  Chin came up behind him and gagged.

“Fucking… smells… dead,” Chin choked out.  

The inside of the chapel did smell like death.  The kid coughed and pushed into the thick, sweet stink.  The interior was a disaster.  Half the pews were stacked against a wall.  The other half were turned over.  All the trappings of the Christian faith were knocked down and ripped asunder.  Garbage was everywhere.  Greywald was already across the small chapel, at the old alter and clearing the whole way.  

“Search in here,” Greywald called back.  Ahead of him was a door leading deeper into the building.

“Don’t go in there alone,” Chin called back, but Greywald was already gone.  More men came in, both with floodlights.  The switches on the wall did not work and so white and yellow light from flashlights and floodlights and weapon-lights danced across the interior.  The kid looked about.  He saw heaps of uneaten food left to rot.  He saw an open 5 gallon tin of cooking oil gone rancid.  He saw piles of human feces fuzzy with mold, and piles of old papers covered in scribbles he could not decipher.  In one corner he saw the desiccated body of a dead dog and lumps that must have been her puppies. The chapel once had had a series of stained glass windows.  Those had been smashed out and now black mold ran thick across the stills.  He saw all this ruin and desecration, but he saw no relics.  

Outside the chapel two shots rang out in quick succession.  The men inside froze.  After a long pause no further gunfire erupted and so they went back to searching.

“Dry hole,” somebody said.  “Ain’t nothing here but junk.”

“Search anyway you fucking shitbirds,” Greywald yelled back from deeper inside the chapel.  

The kid tossed about the junk and trash, the filth and the mold, and at each disturbance new pungent stenches filled his mouth and nose.  He could taste the filth.  A man gagged.  Outside came another gunshot and then more yelling.  The Irishman strode through the entryway.  An electric blue slash of lightning backlight his lank form.


“You want us to search those buildings over there,” The adjutant asked.  He was at his master’s heels like a puppy.  He pointed to what looked like old administrative buildings.  They were white with red tiled roofs, they looked as abandoned as the church.


“Burn them,” The Irishman answered.  He hefted his stick and moved through the masses toiling through the waste.  Both men and filth seemed to part before him as if he were divine.


Greywald’s voice came again from deeper inside the chapel’s interior.  


“I got something here.”


Angus and Chin leapt up and went towards the voice, happy for any excuse to run away from the filth.  More men tried to break but the Irishman snapped at them and they returned to searching.  


They found Greywald in a small room that must have once served as the chaplain’s office.  In the center of the room were several long black duffle bags.  When the Irishman came in, Greywald unzipped one and revealed its contents.



“Is it the barb,” Father Marcelino asked.  He stood behind the Irishman and bobbed his head to see past the tall chieftain.


“Something better,” The Irishman answered, for the bag held death and destruction.


Inside the bag were weapons.  There were carbines and shotguns, all listed as property of the United States Government.  There were pistols marked as property of the state’s highway patrol.  There were dark baseball-like orbs topped with fuses and spoons and pull rings.  There were magazines for everything, and optics and pieces of night vision equipment, their accessories scattered throughout the enormous duffle.  And it the center of all these instruments of death sat the prize, the Holy Grail of this expedition.  This treasure was a curved rectangle of green plastic.  Raised letters on its face read this:



FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY




“That’s mine,” Greywald yelled.


“The hell you say,” The Irishman called back.  Before anybody could protest or claim it for themselves the Irishman snatched up the green plastic trophy and tucked it into his coat.


“Prisoners,” Came the next yell.  “I’ve got prisoners down here.”  The voice came from further in the chapel, and what sounded like down.


“You’ve taken prisoners or you found some prisoners,” Greywald asked.


“I’ve got prisoners!  I’ve got prisoners!”


Greywald’s face twisted with frustration.  He yelled again.  “Did you capture some prisoners or did you find a prisoner?”  There was a long pause.  The Irishman and Greywald, Chin and the kid, the priests and the others waited breathlessly for the reply.  After an eternity it finally came.


“I’ve got prisoners.  I’ve got prisoners.”


“Fuck,” Greywald cursed.  “Jesus,” Chin blasphemed, oblivious to the priests standing next to him.


“Go unfuck that,” The Irishman asked Greywald.  The kid noticed the empathy in the chieftain’s voice, as if he’d dealt with such frustrations many times before.  Outside the office windows, a dull orange light rose against the dark grey sheets of rain.  Buildings outside were being put to the torch.


“You two come with me,” Greywald said to Chin and the kid.  They moved deeper into the chapel.  Behind them, men snatched up the duffels and took them out to the parked trucks.  After shouts and searches they found a set of stairs leading down to the basement. There, a half dozen men stood around the, “prisoners.”   The, “prisoners,” was really just one, “prisoner,” and he wasn’t really a prisoner at all.

“He ain’t no prisoner.  He’s a fucking retard,” Chin announced.

The others had found a man chained to the wall in the basement.  He was clothed in rags and his face covered with drool and slobber.  His dark eyes had a shining brightness to them.  He smiled at the armed men, and made a series of low moans that conveyed happiness.  At his feet were two stainless steel bowls.  One held water.  The other held a stinking brown paste dotted with grains of white rice.  The kid could not tell if it was food or offal.  The room smelled of urine.    

“He ain’t no prisoner,” Greywald declared authoritatively.

“He’s all chained up,” Came a protest.

“He’s chained up ‘cause he’s feeble minded.”

“Why would they chain him up here for that?”

“Because they’re headcounters, and that’s what headcounters do.”

“He’s a fucking retard,” Chin yelled again.  Greywald spun around and looked at the young Chin sourly.

“Was that really necessary?”

“Sorry,” Chin said, cowed into submission by the old, bearded warrior.  As the armed men stood around in their most successful enactment of a cluster-fuck, the moron grinned a wet slobbery grin.  He was happy just to have human company. His bright, dark eyes fell on the kid.  The eyes windowed a soul both loving and vapid.  The moron smiled brighter and let out a loud, idiot guffaw.

“What do we do?”

“We could just shoot him,” somebody offered.  Greywald looked at that man, his look more sour than the one he just gave Chin.

“We’re not shooting him.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Unchain him.”

“What?”

“Unchain him.  Do it and quit fucking around. We’re here for raiding, not for standing around with our peckers in our hands.”

They shot the moron’s chains.  The simpleton cringed at the cracks of gunfire, and once he realized he was free, he ran to a corner and cowered there, screaming in fear.  He shrieks were so loud they were painful.

“What do we do now?”

“We get back to work,” Greywald answered.

“What about him?”

“What about him?  He’ll figure it out.”

“But he’s just… He’s just there in the corner.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Greywald shouted.  “You wanted to shoot him a minute ago.  You fuckers are worse than boots.  We ain’t got time for this shit. Get upstairs. Get back to work.  Fuck.  Fuck!”

Greywald reverted back to his NCO roots, and, with a series of profanities, each louder and more imaginative than the last, he broke up the gaggle of men and got them focused back on the task at hand.    Chin, the kid and Greywald were the last out of the basement.  They left the moron behind.  At the top of the stairs Greywald stopped in his tracks.  

“Shit,” the old man cursed.  

“What?  What is it,” Chin asked.  But the kid already knew.

“It’s stopped raining.”

Been awhile since I've checked on this thread. Good readin' sharkman !!!

"You fuckers are worse than Boots!"

Thank you for the chapter!  I've really been looking forward to it.

More please.......

The kid came up out of basement and into the chapel.  The rain had stopped, and its noise was replaced with a silence that was both loud and ominous.  There was something more.  Light poured in through the smashed chapel windows.  It was disorienting.  Some of the light was swirling and orange.  Other light was soft and yellow.  The kid had to pause to get his bearings, all the while his nostrils protested against the stink of garbage and mildew and decay.  His mind wrapped around the situation, and he could see that the wavering orange light came from buildings outside, buildings the other men had put to the torch.  The softer yellow light came from the east, where the sun now broke over the horizon.

Greywald cursed.  Then cursed again when the dreadful silence was pierced.

The call came out over a public address system.  It came out warblely, distorted.  There was a tinny sound to it, but that tinny sound did nothing to mask the hatred in the call.  The headcounters were using the public address system they used to call worshippers to prayer.  But this was not a call to prayer. It was a call to arms.

“Shit,” Greywald cursed again.  The kid listened to the angry syllables flooding into his ears.  He could not understand the words, but he caught the speaker’s meaning.  Invaders had entered the land of the headcounters, and the headcounters wanted them dead.

“Shit,” Greywald cursed one more time for good measure.  Father Marcelino appeared at his arm.

“Did you find the relic captain,” the Priest asked.

“I ain’t no gawddamn captain you damned fool,” Greywald spat.  He ran out of the chapel, carbine in hand.  Chin looked at the kid.  Then came gunfire and the screams of rockets fired in anger.

A barrage hit the east facing wall of the chapel.  It was only a scattering of bullets and the single thud of a rocket that struck but did not detonate.  That meager fusillade was enough.  The men inside dropped.  A man threw himself flat into a slimy pile of oozing rot.  Chin and the kid ducked and when the incoming paused, Chin took the kid by the arm and ran outside.

“We stayed on the X too long,” Chin said to himself more than the kid.  They left the chapel and things outside were just as confused as they were inside.  Greywald shouted at one group of men who stood idle, gaping at the gunfire coming from the east.  The adjutant shouted at another group of men clustered around a bonfire that once was a building.  Father Marcelino shouted at Father Gerard who stood smiling and looking as pleasant as if he were strolling through a rose garden.  The voice on the PA shouted at the headcounters to defend the faith, and a rocket propelled grenade screamed in from the east, thudded against an oak tree, and dropped unexploded to the ground.

“They ain’t pulling their arming pins,” Chin explained.  “Looks like its amateur hour all-around.”

A burst of automatic weapons fire crackled the air above their heads.  Chin and the kid ducked instinctively and scrambled to a nearby truck.  When the firing paused they popped their head up again.  A man sat in the truck’s driver seat, trying get the engine to turn over.

“I left the lights on when we stopped,” The driver explained with a grin.  “Battery’s dead.”

“You’ll be dead if you don’t get it started,” The kid replied.  The driver maintained his bright grin.  Greywald reappeared.  

“C’mon you two.  Headcounters are coming down the road.  We need to get some security.”

Chin and the kid both nodded.  Greywald looked at the truck and the struggling driver.

“What’s this?”

“He left his light’s on.  Battery’s dead.”

Greywald’s face went red.  His jaw clenched.  Veins on the side of his neck and across his forehead grew and pulsed, but the man said nothing. He only looked at the driver with burning disapproval.  He had less foolish people to yell at.

Chin and the kid found a depression in the ground near an east-west running road that connected the chapel with what must have been the headcounter’s center maybe 500 meters distant.  As the sun rose, squat, cement buildings emerged out of the darkness.  Armed headcounters buzzed about the buildings like bees at a kicked hived.

"You think we can hold them off," Chin asked good naturedly.

"I think we got a running start at a fuck-up," the kid answered.

Awesome but needs more moar!

Nice

Time for some action, just dont make us wait to long

its about to get real... hope they brought a belt fed...

Thanks for the sharkman goodness!

Great stuff!  Looking forward to your next update!

Behind them another explosion roared.   They both turned and saw a burning building list to one side and then collapse.  Orange cinders jumped into the air.  One man cheered.  Others followed suit.  Greywald cursed, trying to move men away from torching buildings and towards the threat massing down the road.   Without a sound, the Irishman appeared behind Chin and the kid.

“What ch’all think?”

The kid took a quick look down the road before answering.  He guessed there were maybe fifty armed headcounters there, milling about for now.  Shooting, and shooting wild, but not daring to attack, at least not yet.

“I think we best high tail it before we get smoked.”

“Yes,” The Irishman agreed.  “We’ve stayed a bit longer than is prudent.  But I’d like to kill a few before we leave.”

“You think they’ll attack up the road boss?”

“If we keep sitting here they might.”

A new howl rose up from behind them.  It was an animalistic sound that made them all turn.  The freed idiot had come up from his basement cell and now stood in the sunlight.  His new found freedom was a delight.  He celebrated it with wild shouts of animal delight, oblivious to the chaos that swirled all about him.

“What the fuck is he so happy about,” Greywald asked as he approached.  His mood had soured further as the tactical situation deteriorated.  “This raid is a goat-fuck boss.”

“It’s not been without its flaws.  You miss your time on the mew yet?”

“Never knew how good I had it.”

“Gimme a skirmish line up here.  I want to kill a few before we go.”

Greywald turned toward the headcounters about half a kilometer away.  He raised his rifle, aimed and fired once.  A half second later he fired again and a fraction of a second after that a headcounter collapsed.  The other headcounters scattered into the underbrush that lined the road.

“That good enough,” Greywald asked.

“Can you kill maybe a dozen more?”

“Sure, if it’ll get us the fuck out of here.”

“Do it.”

The adjutant appeared next. More people drifted to the kid and Chin’s position, hoping to hold court with the Irishman.  As often seemed the case, the adjutant did not speak, but was spoken to.

“Burn everything you can. We’re getting out of here.”  In the background, Greywald’s rifle cracked.  In response, a headcounter ran out across the road.  He’d removed the stock from his rifle and fired it as he ran as if it were a great pistol.  A burst of automatic fire tore up the turf 100 yards short of their position.  Chin and the kid fired back.  They caught him just before he made it across, and the man spun around once and disappeared into the brush.  The adjutant ran off to burn more things.  The two priests were next.

“Did you fine the relic,” Father Marcelino asked hopefully.

“Nope,” The Irishman answered.  

Greywald shot a headcounter with an RPG.  The rocket shot from its tube and skidded down the blacktop road before veering off into the bushes and leaving a trail of blue-gray smoke.

“You ordered your man to burn everything.  You don’t mean to burn the chapel too?”

“I mean to burn everything.”

Father Marcelino gasped and gestured to the small chapel.  “But it is a house of God.”

“Not if the headcounters get to keep it, it won’t be.  And we can’t take it with us.”

Father Gerard stepped forward and in front of his younger companion, cutting him off.

“There is a cross inside.  Let us take the cross,” Father Gerard asked.

“You can take whatever you can fit into the back of a truck, but anything that ain’t coming with us gets the torch.”

Father Gerard nodded and then both priests ran back into the chapel.   A rifle shot snapped overhead.  Then another.  Then a burst of automatic fire than went on for an uncomfortable amount of time but did no damage.  Down the long road, in the vicinity of the gray cement buildings, the kid saw more headcounters buzzing about.  The Irishman’s men buzzed two.  A half-dozen men tossed burning kindling onto the roof of the chapel.  The wet shingles only smoldered and finally they tossed burning kindling into the building.  Some men found a fruit tree near the chapel and they piled kindling against its trunk and burned that too.  Soon anything that could burn, burned.  The wetness from the rain caused everything to smoke heavily and soon great gray clouds of it whirled about, kept low to the ground by the moist air, and swirled and roiled by the heat of the fires.  With nothing left to put to the torch, the Irishman’s men lined up along the road and fired towards the massed headcounters.
 
Chin jumped up.  “I need to get a picture of that,” He exclaimed and he rooted through one of the many pouches that made up his gear.  The kid turned.  Behind him, the two priests carried the chapel’s cross out to one of the waiting trucks.  Marcelino held the long end of the cross and Father Gerard carried the top end.  Because Father Gerard was so much taller, it looked as if they were about to plant the end of the cross into the ground and raise it up.  It reminded the kid of that famous picture of Marines raising the American flag during World War II.  Behind and all around the two priests and their cross, fires raged, so that their background was nothing but flames and it looked as if the two holy men were planted the cross it hell itself.  It was a fine picture, and the kid paused to admire it until and RPG landed not far in front of him.  This time it exploded.

“The motherfuckers learned to pull their pins,” Greywald cursed.  “We need to get the hell out of here.”

“How many did you shoot,” The Irishman asked.

“I shot so damn many that we can go now.”

“Ok.” the Irishman smiled.  “Collapse this perimeter and let’s get going.”

A man let out a whoop of delight and the kid saw they got the dead truck running again.  Behind them, fires churned and eddied, and the idiot still ran about, skipping and laughing

The adjutant shouted and men ran back to their trucks.  Greywald shouted and cursed and the men ran faster.  Chin snapped pictures and the cross made it into the back of a truck.  Flames danced and another RPG exploded.  The freed idiot ran wild and rifle bullets snapped overhead, and the kid looked up at the Irishman who stood calmly admiring his handiwork.

“Did we ever find the relic,” the kid asked. The Irishman turned and looked down.  He arched a hairy white eyebrow.  Over the din of the chaos he had not heard the question, so the kid shouted it again over the roar another inbound RPG.  The Irishman heard it this time.  He smiled and knelt down next to the kid.

“We never found that fishhook, and to be perfectly honest, I never expected to.  The relic wasn’t why I came here.”

The kid’s brow furrowed.  He didn’t ask the obvious question, but the Irishman answered it anyway.

“I came here for no other reason than to just raid and punish these bastards. I wanted to walk in here and burn their stuff and break their things.  I wanted to dance in here, kill a few of them and dance back out, pretty as you please and leave these bastards knowing that I can do it again and there is nothing they can do to stop me.  

“The raid is a language these headcounters understand.  It is their preferred form of warfare, and they are good at it too, when their enemy is unarmed and can’t fight back.  They can attack by surprise, kill some unarmed defenders and run off with the women and children like the desert bandits that spawned them. But put them against an armed defense, put them up against folks who can fight back and they die in place every time.  Then their raids become suicide missions.  And that’s really all they can do.  It’s one or the other.  They can fight against the helpless and win, or they can fight against real fighters and die.  That is all they got.  That’s all they can do.  

“We can do more.   We can come in here, go toe-to-toe with them as long as we want, kill them, leave when we want, and they can’t do a thing to stop us.  We don’t do suicide missions because we don’t have to do suicide missions.  We can fight and survive.  We can fight and win.  When it comes to fighting, for all their bluster about loving death, we are better at killing than they are.  We’re better at war than they are.  We are, and it seems like every 500 years or so we have to remind them of that fact.”

The Irishman’s lips twisted a little.  He thought, and then spoke.

“Seems like every 500 years we need to remind ourselves of that too.”

The Irishman looked from the kid to the enemy, and nodded his head in affirmation of his own words.  

“We don’t have to give in to them.  We can defeat them.  We just need to believe we can.”

Greywald and the adjutant had collapsed the perimeter.  All the men were back in their trucks and most of the trucks were leaving.  Smoke swirled.  The giant wooden cross poked out of a truck bed.  Greywald leaned out of the passenger window and yelled.

“We’re all loaded up.  C’mon.”

The Irishman clapped the kid on the shoulder.

“But the next time I come here, the next time I don’t want it to be a raid.  The next time I come here I want to clean them out for good.  No more pissing around.  Next time we drive them into the sea.  C’mon desperado.  Let’s go.”

He and the kid climbed into their trucks.  The kid hadn’t even closed his door before Nash turned the truck around and sped back to the dirt roads that would take them back across the Scimitar River and to safety.  They were the last truck in the convoy.  The kid turned around and saw what they’d left behind.

Smoke filled the sky, and the flames devoured everything the Irishman’s company had captured.  The chapel, blazing now, leaned to one side before imploding and casting a swarm of embers into the smoke blackened sky.  The rifle bullets snapped and cracked, and the RPG rounds screamed in before exploding.  The enemy’s loudspeakers broadcast blathering angry rants.  In the midst of this cacophony of death and violence, in the middle of the smoke and the fire, the idiot they’d freed ran wild.  He ran in crazed circuits, waving his arms, drooling, smiling and laughing, screaming in babbles both joyous and undecipherable. His dark, glossy eyes shined against the smoke, reveling in his freedom and oblivious to all else in the universe.  

And so, the kid left the land of the Headcounters.  

He knew full well he'd return again.

Very good chapter and thank you!

Very good description regarding how they are a terror to the defenseless, but slaughtered by the strong.

Bullies.

Hell yea good chapter.

Now get back to writing

Nice........

After the Irishman’s excursion into the land of the headcounters, the usual grandees responded in their usual fashion.  All their narratives were quickly dashed however, due in large parts to the picture, and the girls’ school.

The narratives that came out of the same old people where the same old narratives and received wisdoms that had circulated for years.  This had nothing to do with religion and culture on the part of the headcounters, but everything to with the religion and culture of those from “The West.”  Past acts of violence committed by the headcounters, while seemingly widespread, were actually aberrations.   Acts of violence committed against the headcounters were representative of the racism and intolerance of Western Culture as a whole.  And while these attacks seemed few in number to the average (and ignorant) westerner, atrocities committed against headcounters were underreported (due in large part due to the headcounters fear of Western intolerance).   Thus a single attack by Westerners against headcounter in “truth” represented the hundreds of attacks that had gone unreported.  But the hundreds of reported attacks by the headcounters were, well, simply random acts, connectable only in that they were inspired by the intolerance of those the Western audiences the media grandees lectured to.

Then the Chin’s picture of the cross went viral.  

Chin claimed to have never posted the photo online, but every time he spoke this the kid and the others looked upon him with no small amount of doubt.  Regardless, the picture went out for the whole world to see.  The lack of context worked in favor of the Irishman and those partial to his cause.  The image showed two priests pulling a cross out of a chapel, a burning chapel, a burning chapel that most viewers assumed had been torched by the headcounters.  And why wouldn’t they assume that?  At this point most media consumers could remember the stories of headcounters burning churches elsewhere; across Africa, the Middle East, in the Balkans, in the chaotic region of the ‘Stans, across Western Europe where the twin religions of multiculturalism and tolerance demanded human sacrifices upon their alters.

Decades of received wisdom was no longer being received.  The grandees (who knew no more about the incident than those they lectured to) claimed the burning of the chapel was an aberration.  But how could it be an aberration if the headcounters were destroying churches from Afghanistan to Zanzibar?  They claimed these events had nothing to do with religion.  But how could they have nothing to do with religion if holy grounds were being put to the torch?  In the picture there were clearly two priests holding a cross.  How could this have nothing to do with religion when priests were wading through hellish flames to rescue the symbol of their faith?
Media Grandees tried to parry these obvious questions with counteraccusations. “We, the collective west attack the headcounters places of worship all the time,” they said.  Americans were not only unconvinced, they were insulted.  “Where are all these holy places I’m supposed to have attacked,” they asked.  “We’ve been sitting on our couches, too busy being hectored by you for our intolerance to attack the headcounters or their prophet.”  One network ran a multi-hour special report detailing that special phobia of the Western world.   The talking head flashed her puppy-dog eyes and shot sympathetic looks to a host of leaders amongst America’s headcounter community.  They in turn described with great emotion how peaceful their vibrant and long standing culture was.  Then they wailed about the insults they had to endure since immigrating to the West.  They wept and agonized about all the micro aggressions thrust upon them.  The slights and rude behaviors most Westerners saw as simply the cost of getting out of bed in the morning were portrayed by the headcounter scholars as proof positive that it was open season on the headcounters.  All the while, in the background the same half dozen images of spray paint epitaphs on headcounter schools were recycled; equating the vandal’s graffiti to the raider’s torch.

The public remained unconvinced.  The same network that showed daily atrocities committed by the headcounters seemed to be saying that the headcounters weren’t committing atrocities, that if they were committing atrocities it was justified because some headcounters felt offended by the culture of the Western World, a world the headcounters immigrated into while simultaneously rejecting.  The incongruities were obvious and when ordinary people pointed them out the same tired old epitaphs were thrown out.  But those barbs were wielding less and less power. The public was asking what they felt were simple and legitimate questions, and they wanted more from the grandstanding media masters than, “It’s your fault.”

Then there was the attack on the girls’ school.

Armed men in America attacked headcounters in America.  Naturally, the headcounters responded to this aggression by attacking a school for little girls in the Philippines.  A band of some 50 headcounters stormed into a remote school in the Philippines for Christian girls.  The staff and faculty were killed outright.  Some girls, the lucky ones perhaps, had their throats slit after enduring brutal gang rapes by men masked in black hoods and swaddled in black robes. The others were paraded out of the school and taken into the headcounters underground sex slave markets.  As always, all of this was captured on video for the whole world to see.  “Submit to our will or die,” a masked spokesman wielding a crude knife said at the end. The blood of innocent girls stained his curved blade and loose clothes.    

Perhaps more sickening that the actual atrocities was the response from the ‘leaders’ of the Western World.  Their response was predictable, juvenile, and ineffectual.  It started when the First Lady held up a hand drawn sign on an old paper bag.  The crudely written letters read, “Stop the Rape.”  It was further adorned with symbols linking it to the latest social media fad.  It did not say, “Stop the rapes committed by the headcounters in the name of their prophet.”  Nor did it say, “Stop the headcounter’s underground sex slave rings.”  It just said, “Stop the Rape,” as if an armed and organized band of headcounters sacking and raping a Christian school for girls was no different than an individual committing rape on the streets of any town USA.  Politicians and celebrities followed the First Lady’s lead, holding up hand drawn signs of their own and flashing peace signs or sticking out their tongues.  The goal seemed far less about ending rape and far more about posting a picture of oneself online to satiate the narcissistic gods of social media.  The headcounters were waging war.  The western world’s leadership took selfies.  And so it went.  

  And of course the response from the apologists was as swift and as predictable as all the times before.  If bigoted men in America attacked the headcounters, it was both logical and completely understandable that headcounters halfway around the world should rape and murder innocent girls.  The rape, murder and enslavement of innocent girls was unfortunate, but the real tragedy would be if the Western World flinched in its unending quest for multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance.  While heinous acts such as these occurred almost daily, and while it was no secret that the majority of headcounters approved of such acts, and furthermore, while it was no secret that the headcounters still practiced slavery in general and sex slavery in particular, it still could not be denied that the headcounters were peaceful in nature and none of these were truly representative of the nobility of that culture.  And had not Western religions committed heinous acts in the past?  If the West had been brutal in the past, then it was only logical and fair that they should quietly and passively accept the headcounters’ brutality now.  Right?  Not right, not as far as public opinion was concerned.

The polling companies in the United States conducted their polls, and what they found was something more shocking than the rapes and murders and mutilations of the young girls.  What they found was that people were getting tired.  They were tired of seeing the headcounters commit atrocities and get away with it.  They were tired of being lectured at by grandees who told them that the headcounters weren’t committing any violence and even if they were, their victims, and by extension the whole western world, probably deserved it anyway.  The results were kept hidden, never publicized, but they were there.   The winds of public opinion now unashamedly blew in a different direction.  Men who were perceptive enough and ambitious enough could harness this wind and ride it to glory.

That’s when the bagman arrived.

sounds hauntingly familiar.

Good narrative on the state of mind of the general public in the story tho. ( I concur with 2T2_Crash.)

The last few weeks current events well outpaced my ability to write.

Another great chapter.  Thank you!

I understand what you mean about current events.  Almost like Bizarro World.

Going through withdrawal here. Hope all is well on your end.

ETA: Didn't mean to get y'all hopes up.

All is fine.   I just need an extra 24 hours in my work day for all my projects.

Keep this one going, please.

The grass grew wild between the rundown buildings and around the derelict farm equipment.  The grass grew tall and yellow, and it wavered in the wind which also cast about gray dust, like a clergyman with his censer.  The place was once a farm.  That was before the water went away.  

Once the water flowed into this area, bringing life to crops and food to people.  But the administrators took the water away.  First they took water to go to the cities.  Then they took water to give back to nature.  They then took water and gave it to other parts of the state so they could sell it back and forth to each other in a scheme so byzantine it could only be corrupt.  Finally, the administrators took the last of the water and gave it to the headcounters, as if they had not given them enough already.   Without water, this farm died, like so many other farms in the region.  Now the farm served as the cantonment area of the Irishman’s company.  It was here that the bagman found them.

The bagman came in a convoy of blacked out SUVs.  He also came with money, cases of it.  He was tall, with dark, slicked back hair and the face of a movie star.  The bodyguards who flanked him were equally good looking, with chiseled features and slick looking clothes to match their slick looking submachine guns.

“They looks like a bunch of G-men, just with better suits and sunglasses,” Nash said.

“I wouldn’t mind having one of those submachine guns,” Chin said.

“You don’t need no more gear.”

¬“Who’s he working for anyway,” The kid asked.

“He’s working for the Stockman,” Greywald answered.  “And everybody knows who the Stockman is.”

Chin whistled with appreciation.  Nash sucked at his teeth.

“Who’s the Stockman,” the Kid asked.

Somebody produced a magazine.  On its cover, with its trademark red border, was a picture of the Stockman.  White teeth gleamed between a snow-white cowboy hat and a gold belt buckle.

“There’s a dude if I ever saw one.”

“The Stockman is from up north,” Nash started.  “He made his money the same way his daddy did, writing programs for computers and cell phones and such.  The cowboy getup came later, so don’t let the hat and boots fool you.”

“They didn’t,” Angus said dryly.  Not hearing, Nash continued.

“He’s a rich guy, so he married a rich girl, some Mexican heiress whose family is into horses and ranches and such.  After him and the senorita got hitched, he started wearing them duds and calling himself ‘The Stockman.’  His real name’s Gary.  If he’s a cowboy, it’s only of the Rhinestone variety.”

“He’s rich though,” Chin added.  There was a degree of hopefulness in his voice.  Greywald, who sat on a stack of moldering hay bales, chewed a piece of grass.  His hands cleaned a pistol. His motions were as precise and thoughtless as any automation.  His eyes, squinted against the sun, never left the bagman.

“Damn straight he’s rich,” Nash said with gusto.  You know that east-west running valley by Banos?  The one where they grew tomatoes before they took all the water away.  Well, him and his wife were riding horses out there one day and word is she said something about how it reminded her of back home in Mexico, so next thing you know he up and buys the whole damn valley.  Just buys a whole valley, on a whim.  Farms and everything, bought ‘em all out.  Just for horseback riding.  Damn if that ain’t rich.”

Greywald spat out into the dust, his disapproval apparent.   “He ain’t rich.  Rich people buy mansions and fancy ass cars.  He’s more than rich.  He’s buying himself his own war.  People like that are more than just rich.  They’re ambitious.”

“What’s he given us money for,” The kid asked.

“Why d’ya think,” Chin asked.  “He wants us to take down the headcounters.”

“Don’t believe it,” Greywald said.  His tone was gravelly and ominous.  “He don’t give a hoot about the headcounters and he sure as hell don’t give a hoot about you or me or folks like us.

“The only reason he’s giving us money is cuz he’s running for state senate.  The only reason he’s running for state senate is cuz he wants to be governor.  And the only reason he wants to be governor is cuz he really wants to be president.”

Greywald spat again.  “That money comes at a price.”

“If that’s the case then what are we taking it for?  The Irishman’s got money.”

Greywald didn’t look at Chin, but he shook his head.

“He ain’t got that kinda money.  He sold his business, took out another mortgage on his house, all to keep this operation viable.”

Chin’s eyes went wide.  Greywald nodded solemnly, affirming both his previous statement and the Irishman’s commitment.

“You think all that food we put into your mouth, the fuel we put in the trucks and the ammo we put into your rifle comes for free.  No sir.  There’s more to fighting a war than just guns and war bodies to pull the triggers.  You need ideas.  You need plans and strategies.  You need stuff of all types and more stuff to fix that stuff and move it all around.  You need the people to move and fix the stuff, and those people need their own stuff.  And of course you need the gunfighters and their guns and everything else that goes with that.  But most of all, more than anything else, if you want to fight a war you need money.”

“And if its blood money,” The kid asked.

Greywald glared at the farmhouse, his mood apocalyptic.  He spat.  

“You don’t want to get your hands dirty, then don’t go to fucking war.”



The Irishman came out of the house with the bagman and his entourage.  The kid and his companions watched as a few words were exchanged on the sagging porch of greyed lumber.  Without much fanfare, the bagman and his men climbed back into their SUVs, minus the capital.

The kid could not help but notice that when the Irishman and the bagman parted company they did not shake hands.

Thank you